Sunny Side Up

I have a friend who traveled extensively for sports in his youth and, later, for work, and he told me once that he regretted not getting out and enjoying the places he visited when he had the chance - as he told it, his experiences in all these far-flung places were largely limited to hotel rooms and event centres. This story really struck a nerve with me and I have since made a concerted effort to enjoy the hell out of every place I travel.

Of course, it's easy to enjoy places you travel to when you're on vacation, because you're on vacation - how bad could it even be? Given my job, however, I mostly travel to small towns in rural western Canada, and mostly during the hectic field season - basically the very antithesis of a state of vacation, in places that are on precisely no-one's bucket list. 

But you know what? I mostly do enjoy these places, or at least aspects of these places. There's nearly always a positive nugget in there somewhere. Worst case scenario, I come away with a ridiculous field story, which is in itself a positive thing in my books. As they say, Wherever you go, there you are, and I do believe the ability to find the sunny side in your travels has a lot to do with the attitude you're packing along. I always aspire to pack my very best attitude; failing that, I also pack an assortment of colourful field gotch to choose from when I need a mood boost in the morning. As they don't ever say, but maybe should, With colourful underpants and enough coffee, anything is possible.

(Honestly, that should be my company slogan, although I might have to classy it up a bit before I put it on letterhead - any of you folks know Latin?) 

He probably doesn't even remember the conversation, but I've had so many delightful experiences in so many little podunk places since embarking on my Positive Travel Attitude phase that my friend deserves a thank-you for the inspiration. Thanks, buddy! (He doesn't read this, but don't worry - I'll buy him a beer sometime and tell him in person.)

I was considering making an adventure map to share here, with a little pin at each oddball place and a cutesy little happy story to accompany each pin, but on consideration it just seemed too - how to put it delicately? - Instagrammy-bullshit for me to follow through with. It felt like I was sullying those magical moments, like staging a yoga pose in front of a beautiful mountain view and posting it for fake internet points. Gross.

Instead, I will stay firmly on-brand and tell you about a time when I embarrassed myself in the field. (I'd just like to point out that another friend of mine once suggested I rarely "put myself out there" - I contend that oversharing is indeed a form of putting oneself out there, and if anything I do it too much. But I digress. Also too much.)

Picture it: Chain hotel in a small town, the kind with the free popcorn in the lobby. I check in and have a nice chat with the young-ish, not-unattractive fellow at the front desk. He showed me something funny going down on one of the hallway security cameras and we had a laugh. I headed to my room, hopped in the shower, and realized two things: one, I forgot to give the guy my rewards card, and two, I forgot to get popcorn. I threw on some comfy clothes and a pair of Bama socks (too lazy to put on real shoes at this point in the day) and headed down to the lobby.

"Hi again," said front desk guy.

"Hey," I said, through a mouthful of popcorn, "I forgot to give you this when I checked in." And handed over my rewards card.

Except I didn't hand over my rewards card. I handed him my room key.

In my defense, they both have a little picture of a bag of popcorn on them - they honestly look very similar - and it had been a long day.

Front desk guy just stared at the card, with his jaw *literally* hanging open. We stood there like this for an uncomfortably long time - in retrospect, sortof an insultingly long time - me staring at him wondering why he wasn't giving me my reward points, and him staring at the room key this popcorn-munching old coug had just handed him.

I eventually realized I'd given him the wrong card and switched them out. He gave me my points; I shuffled off to my room. It wasn't until then that I realized the implication of what I'd done (seriously, it was a long day), and then the implication of him not taking the damn room card. I mean, did he really need to be quite so aghast about it? Was it really that hard a decision? Jeebus.

So yeah, I do put myself out there - way out there, apparently, and not necessarily intentionally, but still. It was a bit of a worst case scenario, but by employing my Positive Travel Attitude I was able to glean not only a ridiculous field story, but also an incredibly ballsy pickup technique to share with you. Feel free to give it a try the next time your self esteem needs to be taken down several notches.

Niche Market

Hello, my name is Frecklepelt. I'm here today because I'm forty years old and I still haven't figured out what to do with my hair.

(This is a support group, right? You guys are supporting me in my lack of hair awareness? Cool, thx.)

I feel about my hair like old people feel about technology: it's mysterious and confusing, and although I am somewhat envious of others' abilities to wrangle the technology, frankly I'm not terribly inclined to learn how to use it myself. I'm all like, Why isn't it working today? It worked yesterday and I didn't change a thing! Why does it hate me?! Screw it, I'm going to deal with this the old-fashioned way that I understand (i.e., ponytail).

This is not to say that I haven't gotten some solid mileage out of my hair over the years - there's always been a certain market for the red hair/green eyes thing. Often of the basement-dwelling variety (thanks, perhaps, to the fantasy genre?), but y'know, in a pinch, I figure I can always catch some D&D D. I'd also like to thank kids' shows for deeply ingraining in people that the redhead with glasses is the smart one - I got glasses at the ripe old age of 6 so I feel I've benefitted from that unconscious bias for most of my life.

So I don't hate my hair, it's just that our relationship is somewhat... adversarial. I wake up every day knowing there's going to be some kind of battle with it, and I approach the mirror with the same look of grim determination on my face that my Grandma Mabel got every time she had to use her cell phone. I can remember her mashing the absolute hell out of those tiny buttons (wise of her to pass on before the advent of the touch screen), then getting angry-scared something had gone wrong and starting over, over and over, until she finally rage quit and just put it in a fucking ponytail again.

Oh wait, sorry, got my analogy a little tangled there.

To give Grandma credit, she had her hair absolutely 100% figured out - you've never seen a more luxurious head of winter-white weekly-set curls than she had. Never a lock out of place. I suspect she was just as frustrated by my apparent inability to do anything with my hair as I was whenever she tried to make a cell phone call. "If you'd only..."

I'm starting to get a few grey hairs myself - or rather, winter-white hairs. I like to arrange them on top for business meetings to give myself some street cred. Because it seems as if it will turn white I've been envisioning my hair one day magically becoming just like Grandma's, but the reality is that she maintained a complex hair regimen that she guarded as closely as her molasses cookies recipe and it is unlikely I'll ever be able to recreate either in my lifetime. Probably my hair will be just as mental as ever, except white. 

I'd like to tell you that I'm at least keeping up on technology to make up for my hair-styling ineptitude, but that would be a lie. By this point, it's looking like I'm going to have to cultivate some other skill set for my grandkids to appreciate me for. I'll be sure to let you know when I figure out what that's going to be, in case anyone else in the support group is in a similar boat.